


Blood Stock

by gwyllion



Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-23
Updated: 2011-01-23
Packaged: 2017-12-05 00:02:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwyllion/pseuds/gwyllion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Last Author Standing Prompt: Chance encounter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Stock

You fall to your knees. You heave and sputter. Your stomach churns, swimming with Tequila. Your throat burns, constricts, expelling the fiery liquid onto the dust of a Mexican street.

You raise your head from the cracked pavement. You open one eye.

“Rodrigo!” your voice chokes with the coagulated cluster of phlegm. You spit out, letting the slop collect on the ground.

You rub your hands on your thighs. The warmth of the skin beneath the denim bleeds through the fibers and heats your palms.

“Where the hell are you?” Your eyes water, drip. Your head pounds to the strums of the bajo sexto, each note reverberating with the arteries in your skull.

No one answers.

The women watch you struggle to your feet.

Stupid American. Their words go unspoken, curling instead from the crimson paint of their smirking lips.

Your worn-out boots scrape the gravel.

“Este chicle! Este chicle!” a boy, half your daughter’s age, calls out. He runs through the square, selling chewing gum and condoms to the prostitutes who can afford them and heroin to the junkie tourists who can’t.

For an instant, you wonder what kind of father lets his son stay up this late, when the hands of your wristwatch pointed to midnight hours ago in the bar with your co-worker drunk by your side.

You shake your head. The greasy smell of frying tortillas makes you sick to your stomach. You try to get your bearings, but your pulse races through worried veins.

Stoutamire should have known better than to send you to Juarez with Rodrigo. Of all the ranch hands he could have chosen yesterday morning, he picked you, the one who hadn’t traveled any farther than around a coffee pot looking for the handle.

“Del Mar, you’ll take the wheel first,” he said, the wind lifting the brim of his Stetson, his face stained red from ages spent on the grazing fields. “Rodrigo can sleep.”

You didn’t fault him for sending Rodrigo to share the driving. Someone who knew the language well enough to communicate with the locals would prove useful if trouble arose.

But Stoutamire didn’t expect you to become separated, lost on the streets of the border town.

You stumble along, your right hand petting the side of a stucco building to steady your steps. A ruby glow spills through a window and spreads onto the street.

Where the fuck is Rodrigo now?

This afternoon, the hacienda boss had been pleased with the delivery. Two thousand pounds of stud bull bucked and snorted when you and Rodrigo swung the trailer gate wide.

“Gracias, señors,” the boss man said when the bull bolted into the pen. He stood back to keep the flinging shit away from his white suit.

He smiled at his investment, a gold tooth glinting in the siesta air. Blood stock. The prize bull would have a harem soon. The price of meat made the pesos well-spent. Americans would pay top dollar for the cattle the bull would sire, the cost of USDA ranch-raised beef prohibitive to gauchos and cowboys alike.

Stoutamire was no fool. “Make sure he pays in US dollars,” he’d said before you left Riverton. The load of steers for slaughter you’d pick up on the return trip through El Paso destined to cancel out the money spent on fuel. The cash would change hands in Juarez with a Mexican wealthy enough to buy the American stud, the price too high for a plain Wyoming son of the range.

You had nodded to Stoutamire and let your foot off the clutch. Rodrigo would take the next shift of driving when you stopped for gas in Cheyenne, the first of many interruptions on your 24 hour ride.

The miles had drifted beneath the rolling wheels, the trailer jostling with the nerves of the impatient bull. Places you had heard of- Fort Collins, Denver, and Pueblo mixed with the exotic Trinidads, Ratons, and Romerovilles.

Color streaked the sky with the last vestiges of sunset playing over the high peaks before night fell. You had slept some while Rodrigo drove, the radio low.

“Once I had a secret love,” Connie Francis had threatened to expose your sins when Rodrigo pulled into a gas station in Santa Fe.

“Jack’s from Texas,” you heard yourself tell your ex-wife, back when you were still married.

You had pressed your face against the glass of the passenger’s side window, looking east to Childress. A pang of sorrow speared your heart. Next month you’ll make it up to him. You’ll apologize, tell him you’re sorry for sending him away. Jack, you swear, your lips moving against the dirty truck window, your eyes searching the flat prairie.

Rodrigo drags you to the bar after your transaction at the hacienda.

“Just one drink,” he pleads, the crumpled bills burning a hole in his pocket.

You reluctantly agree. He’s young. He should be able to enjoy himself a little after spending all day and night in the truck. You remember the time when you were young, when whiskey and a companion could cure any ache.

“Rodrigo,” you yell, standing at the mouth of the alleyway, remembering the place where you last saw him.

Your head is clearer now. You need to find him and get moving if you’re going to make it to El Paso to meet with the cattle rancher by dawn.

You step into the alley and Rodrigo calls to you from an open door, “Amigo, I was just going to look for you. I’ll be ready in a minute.”

You let your back rest on the crumbling cement wall.

Coyotes howl beyond the village, welcoming the dawn.

The sounds of the alley are louder. You blush, embarrassed, recognizing the familiar moans elicited when a thick oily finger pushes in.

Rodrigo emerges from the room, clapping a hand on your shoulder.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Gracias señor," says his companion.

You know the voice before you meet his eyes.

You breathe his name.

“Jack?”

**Author's Note:**

> Blood Stock was written for Last Author Standing - 2011, which I won in the category of "Movies."


End file.
